Culturally Relevant Inspiration De Ana Dickey EDU692 Prof. Maureen Lienau PhD. July 16, 2016

Culturally Relevant Program COMPUGIRLS O

Location and Demographics O Located in Phoenix, Arizona O Aimed at adolescent girls O 62% Hispanic O 19% African American O 17% Native American O 1% White (COMPUGIRLS, n.d.)

How Is The Program Unique and/or Innovative? COMPUGIRLS is unique and innovative because the program uses multimedia activities to promote computational thinking. The program also combines the technological and social aspects of learning to promote analytical skills, and provides girls with a safe, diverse and fun learning environment that nurtures the development of a positive self- concept.

What 21 st Skills Does The School Promote? O Mastery of fundamental subjects O Information, Media and Technology Skills O Life and Career Skills O 21st Century Professional Development O 21st Century Learning Environment (Framework, n.d.)

How Do Learning Experiences Reflect Culturally Relevant Pedagogy? In the COMPUGIRL Program, participants learn how to identify a topic within their own lived experiences, and use their time in the classroom to build their knowledge fund. The learning experiences also reflect culturally relevant pedagogy by promoting connectedness. Participants learn how to use their life experiences to advance their community and reduce social and economic inequities.

How Does The Program Promote Creativity For Teachers And Students? The COMPUGIRLS program promotes creativity for students by giving them the opportunity to gain hands-on digital media production experience with photo editing software, documentary filmmaking, and podcasting. Students also learn how to create games using a variety of software. The program promotes creativity for teachers by giving them the opportunity to creatively and critically assess their own understanding of technology and computer science. Teachers also get the opportunity to assess how culturally relevant teaching and technology intersect.

Culturally Relevant Program The GDTMC Program

Location and Demographic O Located in Northeast, Washington DC O Aimed at minority middle school and high school students O 57% female O 97% African American O 2% Hispanic O 0.6% White and Asian ( Scott, Clark, Sheridan, Mruczek, & Hayes, n.d)

How Is The Program Unique And/Or Innovative? The GDTMC Program uses culturally relevant teaching in the area of game design. The computer science program also promotes interest and self-efficacy and skills in computer science, and places an emphasis on the three primary aspects of computer science: programming, modeling, and simulation.

What 21 st Skills Does The School Promote? O Information, Media and Technology Skills O Life and Career Skills O 21st Century Professional Development O 21st Century Learning Environment (Framework, n.d.)

How Do Learning Experiences Reflect Culturally Relevant Pedagogy? The GDTMC Program uses learning experiences to reflect culturally relevant pedagogy by using formative assessment on a continual basis. Teachers use the data to tailor the program to fit participants interests and needs. The program is aimed at African American students with with sub-3.0 GPAs, and use a mentorship model to foster a sharing and collaborative learning environment.

How Does The Program Promote Creativity For Teachers And Students? The GDTMC Program gives students the opportunity to use game design to foster creative thinking, work collaboratively to create things using software, and also gives them the freedom to create their own designs. The GDTMC Program promotes creativity for teachers by giving them the opportunity to critically assess their own understanding of computer science, how culturally relevant teaching and computer science intersect, and how to use data to think of culturally relevant strategies to keep participants engaged.

Culturally Relevant Program Stories to Our Children Program O df df

Location and Demographic O Located in Southwestern, USA O Aimed at Latina/o parents (Rosado, Amaro-Jiménez & Kieffer, 2015)

How Is The Program Unique And/Or Innovative? The Stories for Our Children Program aids in the creation of authentic Hispanic literature. The program was initially developed to increase the literacy rate while strengthening cultural bonds within the Latina/o community.

What 21 st Skills Does The Program Promote? O Mastery of fundamental skills O Life and Career Skills O 21st Century Professional Development (Framework, n.d.)

How Do Learning Experiences Reflect Culturally Relevant Pedagogy? Stories for Our Children teaches participants how to identify a topic within their own lived experiences in the Hispanic community. The program also enables students and parents to use and build their knowledge fund through reading, writing, and storytelling. Participants learn how to use life experiences to advance their community, while reducing social and economic inequities and promoting family literacy within their community.

How Does The Program Promote Creativity For Parents And Their Children? Stories for our Children gives participants the opportunity to analyze and connect authentic, culturally relevant literature to their lives and community. Parents get the chance to critically and creatively assess their own understanding of how reading, writing and storytelling can help preserve their culture, and work collaboratively with members of the community to come up with strategies to promote literacy.

References O Framework for 21st century learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from work/p21-framework Framework for 21st century learninghttp:// work/p21-framework O Rosado, L., Amaro-Jiménez, C., & Kieffer, I. (2015). Stories to our Children: A Program Aimed at Developing Authentic and Culturally Relevant Literature for Latina/o Children [Electronic version]. School Community Journal, 25(1). O Scott, K. A., Clark, K., Sheridan, K. M., Mruczek, C., & Hayes, E (n.d). Culturally Relevant Computing Programs: Two Examples to Inform Teacher Professional Development.